Weight control escalator



Jan. 8, 1935.

A. l.. SPRECKER WEIGHT CONTROL ESCALATOR Filed Oct. 4, 1933 PatentedJan. 8, 19.35 l

UNITED STATES WEIGHT CONTROL ESCALATOR Alfred'L. Sprecker, Freeport,Long Island, N. Y., assignor to International Business MachinesCorporation, New York, N. Y., a corporation oi' New York ApplicationOctober 4, 1'933, Serial No. 692,064

1 Claim.

vThis case relates to means for preventing jams and large crowds formingat the ends of an escalator.

In department stores or'similar places, par- 5 ticularly at specialsales and holiday rushes,

crowds are apt to form at the ends of an escalator,

and as the escalator discharges more and more people into the crowd, itbecomes so large and unwieldy that proper ow of tralc through the l0store is impeded and serious personal injuries may be caused should anysituation arise to create a feeling of hysteria or panic in the crowd.

The object of this inventionis to provide means for measuring the degreeof 'crowding at the end of an escalator and governing operation of theescalator 'with its attendant discharge of people accordingly.

More specifically, the object is to provide such crowd measuring meansin the form of weighing mechanism for automatically controllingmovelment of the escalator in accordance with the Fig. 2 is av detail ofthe control for the escalatorv showing it in a. different position thanin Fig. 1.

In detail, the escalator 10 is driven by a belt 12 connected throughgearing 14 to motor shaft 16 of motor 18. The circuit for the motorincludes a switch S comprising spring blades 20 adapted to beconductively connected in series by a metal-faced roller 22 which is onthe forward end of a lever 24 pivoted at 26. At its rear end, lever 24is forked to provide tines 28 between which is located a roller 30 onthe forward end of a lever 32 pivoted at 34 and also forked at its rearend to receive a`A` pin 36 on a weighing lever 38. Connectingthe tforward end of lever 32 and a iixed standard 4.0 is a coil spring 42,the tendency of which is to move lever 32 once it passes a mid-wayposition to its extreme clockwise or counterclockwise position. Weighinglever 38 is of the rst order, fulcrumed at 44 and has the rear armprovided with an upright 46 formed with a V-bearing 48 at its upper endto receive the knife edge 50 of a long third order lever 52, which inturn is similarly pivotally connected with a short third order lever 54.Both levers 52 and 54 have knife edges 56 for supporting the links 58connected to legs 60 of platform 62 5 which is a section of the floor 64at the foot of the escalator 10.

The forward arm of weighing lever 38 has notches 66 any of which maylocate a hanging counterweight 68 which thus constitutes an ad- '10justable load counterbalance of the weighing mechanism.y If the numberof people standing on platform 62 is within the desired limit asmeasured by a maximum prescribed weight, then counterweight 68 is notoverbalanced and the lever 38 1* does not move.

When the weight of the crowd on platform 62 becomes greater than theprescribed limit, levers 52 and 54 are depressed and lever 52 exerts aforce on lever 38 overcoming the resistance of counterweight 68 androcking lever 38 clockwise. As the lever 38 rocks clockwise, its pin 36turns lever 32 counterclockwise and lever 32 through, roller 30 rockslever 24 clockwise from its normal position in Fig. 1. When duringcounterclockwise movement of lever 32, it passes its mid-way I point,the spring 42 snaps the lever all-the way' to the position shown in Fig.2. Consequently the lever 24 has its roller 22 completely disengagedfrom between blades 20 of switch Sv and the mo- 30 tor circuit isopened', stopping operation of motor 18` and of the escalator 10actuated thereby. The escalator will now no longer be discharging peopleonto the platform 62 and into the space adjacent the platform so that ifthe foot of the escalator is jammed with too great a crowd, thecondition will not be aggravated by further discharge of people into thejam but will be remedied by permitting the crowd to dissipate in thenormal flow of trailic through the stores.

As soon as the jam at the foot ofthe escalator becomes lessened, theweight on platform 62 is insumcient to overcome the force ofcounterweight 68 which thereupon rocks lever 38 coun- 45 In a similarmanner, the crowd at the head of an ascending escalator may be weighedto regulate operation of the escalator.

The form of escalator or the driving connections may be changed withoutdeparting from the basic thought of the invention which is to weigh thecrowd at the end of an escalator or the like and stop or continueoperation of the latter depending on whether the crowd is too large ornot and thereby regulate the traiic adjacent the end of the escalator.The invention is applicable wherever an escalator, conveyor, or elevatoris used and not only to prevent overcrowding of an area by people butalso the overloading of flooring by goods transported through theconveyor or the like.

While there has been shown and described and pointed out the fundamentalnovel features of the invention as applied to a single modication, itwill be understood that various omissions and substitutions and changesin the form and details of the device illustrated and in its operationmay be made byv those skilled in the art without departing from thespirit of the invention. It

is'the intention therefore to be limited only as indicated by the scopeof the following claim.

What is claimed is as follows:

A device for regulating operation of the con-.- veyor to regulate thetrailc of goods or persons at one end of the conveyor, comprising aiioor in line with said end of the conveyor and over which generaltraffic flows in addition to the trafl'c from the conveyor, said oorincluding a. depressible section in the general plane of the floor andlocated immediately adjacent said end of the conveyor to directlyreceive the discharge of traffic from the conveyor, weighing mechanismfor supporting said floor section including a. load counterbalance forresisting operation of the weighing mechanism under the weight of tracon said floor section, an actuator for operating said conveyor andcontrolling means for said actuator operated by said weighing mecha.-nism in accordance with the weight of both the general and the conveyortrafc on said floor section to regulate operation of the actuator andthereby regulatethe degree of crowding of the traic at said end of theconveyor.

ALFRED L. SPRECKER.

